how do you measure ph

[kenneth_kpe]

how do you properly measure PH and KH..... my ph from tapwater and tank water is almost the same !!! i cant tell the diff really... the colors look similar to me... anyway.. im using a sera ph test kit for freshwater tanks. Am i doing something wrong ? how do i collect the water ? just scoop it ? or collect from the middle part of the tank ? im stumped (

 

[konrad05]

You just collect it, just make you rinse the test container once or twice with tank water before taking the real sample. If the pH's are the same, then that's fine I guess, unless you're adding CO2, then that's not fine

 

[Lateral Line]

As long as you have some water movement in your tank, it doesn't matter where you collect it from. Even a totally still tank will not show a great deal of difference.

If you are using tapwater to replace the water in your tank, then unless there are external factors you have not told us about, the tapwater and tankwater will have the same pH and hardness.

 

[George Farmer]

Unless you have weird tap water like me with massive amounts of phosphates and co2. It reads pH 7.0 to start with then after aeration and phophate removal reads pH 7.8!! Took me ages to figure that one out, now I use RO/tap mix and a phosphate resin.

 

[kenneth_kpe]

well im trying to add c02 and i dont think its working because i cant really measure any increase in the c02 level... the c02 levels of my tap water and tank water seems pretty much the same... how do i check for phosphates ? with another testing kit ?!?!

 

[George Farmer]

yep, Nutrafin do a good one